The world is on fire right now. Our neighbours to the south are plummeting headlong into insanity, making the resistance of fascism illegal. As if it is a radical stance to oppose fascists and fascism.
I feel like everything is upside down in the world. I have struggled with the helplessness and anger before. It's back full force, and I've managed to achieve very little.
Of course, in times like this, we tend to look backwards to a time when things were much simpler. Except, of course, our ignorance of the reality in which we lived was what made things seem simpler. For me, i've been thinking a lot about high school.
It was a miserable time for me, I'm sure I've said that before. Most of it has been erased from my memory. There is a nebulous hazy grey when I think back, a cloud that warns of sadness and torment. I had undiagnosed clinical depression. I was bullied to the point of suicidal ideation. I tried. Several times. It was awful.
But there are some points of light, some few memories.
I loved the learning, for example, though that love was one of the many things that made me a target for bullies. My favourite classes were always art, of course, and wood shop. I enjoyed my after school activities, on of which was leatherwork.
By the way, I checked back on my alma mater yesterday, and they have a bloody observatory. AN OBSERVATORY. FOR ASTRONOMY. Who the fuck gave them the money for that? Also, their uniforms are quite different from when I was there. I really like them now.
All besides the point, of course.
The point is, I appreciated the structured days, and the pursuit of knowledge without much care to other things. I turn to my life now, and find that I'm unable to operate without structure. Work used to provide that for me. Now I'm not working, I'm feeling lost and listless. I've been able to break through some of it some of the time, getting work done in bursts, but it never lasts.
Yesterday, I spent a lot of time questioning why, and how I can fix it... because I've not been able to successfully fix it to date. So, I'm going back to school.
Sort of.
What I mean is: I've created a school schedule for myself; six 50 minute lessons with five minutes in between (you, know, so I can make it to the next classroom on time (I'll be using those five minutes to stretch)), a half hour break for morning tea and an hour break for lunch.
I have legitimate classes that I'm taking anyway via skillshare.com - and I figured if I'm learning something, why not build around it?
I've even assigned myself some assessment... which is to say, the work that I still do while at home. My blog posts for Black Gate Magazine, they' re assignments for my English class, due every two weeks. A completed novel is my end of year assessment for English. I have art assignments - that acrylic painting that stands perpetually unfinished is the first art assignment due. Every Monday, my video editing class demands I turn in my Silver Stag Studio projects. Luckily, there are no marks, because I would crumble beneath the stress of that (as I did in school).
Only Phys Ed doesn't have some sort of assignment that I've given myself.
Blog posts here are my nightly homework, as is guitar practice. Guitar lessons every Monday. Martial arts are my extra-curricular activity.
School begins at 9:00 each morning, and ends at 3:45 in the afternoon, in which case, I go for a walk. The school year begins June 8th, and ends... whenever I can get back to my job.
Another addendum, I walked to and from school every day, and I went back and checked how long a trip that was last night. Twenty minutes if I dragged my feet. So, to kinda draw on the structure of my day from back in the day, I will go for a half hour walk in the morning and afternoon.
To be perfectly clear, I am not nostalgic for my high school days. They were damaging in ways that I'm still recovering from. I do miss the learning. And I really miss the structure of it. I'm not built for long days of doing whatever whenever, I guess.
Right, I have to go and get stuff sorted and work done.
Ciao!